~ Free Thinker.

THE BEADY EYE: SOCIAL MEDIA WASHING LINE : LOOKS AT THE EU GRAVY TRAIN.

( A thirteen minute read)

THE European Union (EU) is “unified only in name” and faces the “danger of disintegration” if it does not tackle the obvious reforms needed.

The 2008 financial meltdown and subsequent sovereign debt crisis and then the 2015 migrant crisis demonstrated that the EU is unified only in name. Brexit and the idea of sovereignty it symbolizes is a mighty catalyst for all member states’ citizens to rethink their idea of Europe and national sovereignty.

While the majority of us scrape a living i have always held that if you want an organisation to operate you must attract the best by paying above the odds. The EU has repeatedly attracted controversy over the hugely lavish pay and perks it affords to its staff, which are in stark contrast to the experience of workers across the continent who have suffered years of pay freezes.

THOUSANDS of pounds of European Union (EU) taxpayers’ money are going straight into politicians’ coffers as MEPs are not using office allowances. As well as the £3,783 handed to them by the EU for an office space, MEPs are paid £7,392 a month – £88,704 annually – and get £21,057 to spend on office staff.

Surely its time that we the tax payer on social media demand a stop to the EU Gravy train loop holes by demanding that all expenses, payments are transparent and subject to scrutiny.

The complete lack of transparency in the EU means that eurocrats think they can get away with living the high life at our expense.

EUROPEAN Union bureaucrats put a staggering £85 million on credit cards issued to pay for meals and hotels – in just one year.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, was offered a salary five times higher than his pay in Warsaw.

A whopping £94 m is proposed to be spent on “information and communication” in the 2018 budget, including £28 m on promoting the next European elections.

On top of that the EU’s burgeoning fleet of electric cars is to be expanded by a third, from 60 to 90, and an eye-watering £3 m would be spent on making Irish an official language in Brussels.

A total of 249 offices out of the potential 748 do not exist or could not be found.

Only 133 current MEPs across the 28 member states revealed to the team what they pay in office rent. 249 said they either have no offices or refused to reveal their addresses, or their locations could not be found, while 19 said they work from home.

The European Parliament also does not keep a record of politicians’ offices in their home countries.

The issue gets even more complicated when MEPs own the office buildings themselves, which has happened in Germany where eight MEPs from different political parties own their building.

Manfred Weber, chairman of the European Union Parliament’s biggest group, the centre-right EPP, is one MEP who owns his own office. The office is based in an annex at his private home in a village in Bavaria, which is miles from more populated areas.

MEPs are also sub-renting offices from their own local political party branches, with 38 confirming their offices were in that situation.

“The EU Commission has to revise its Code of Conduct completely and put in place a credible, impartial, ethics body to stop the gravy train.

More than £17.4 million of EU taxpayers’ money has been blown on giving people bargain getaways to Brussels and Strasbourg, an official report into the extravagance of the European Parliament has revealed.

As well as not having to declare spending, there also does not appear to be a definitive set of rules as to how allowances should be spent, with MEPs interpreting how to use the cash differently.

Some used the entire office allowance for office equipment, internet subscriptions and other work-related costs. Others used their “general expenditure” on travel expenses for visitors, charity donations and national party payments. Some politicians transfer their entire EU allowance to their national party – which under Brussels rules is not allowed.

Nick Aiossa, EU policy officer at Transparency International, said: “I could never imagine MEPs giving out 40 million a year to member states for cohesion policy, without one receipt.“There is a level of hypocrisy on the financial management score that we find is quite astounding.

While Brexit will shed billions from the EU coffers the Brussels gravy train continues full speed ahead.

MORE than thirty per cent of the EU’s ex-MEPs have been re-hired as lobbyists.